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Benton Battle 
Field 





Bi? A. M. PRUDE 



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Benton Battle 
Field 



Bv a: M. PRUDE 

A Forrest Cavalryman 



Author of 

Soliloquy of Birmingham Bob of Rainbow Glen; 100.000 Men in Tears; One 

Night's Confederate Service; Amazon of the 7th Alabama Cavalry; 

One Night on Picket; Fifteen Day's Confederate Service 

or "War is Hell." Et. al. 



a^.--3 



On this Booklet, I, who faced foes on Battle Fields, Stood Shock of Battle 

■without tremor and led onward charge. Build my Claim to Bravery 

displayed on Carnage Ground, and Foundation my 

Reputation as a Warrior. 



Cop-gri$hted 5j? 

A. M. Prude. Pratt City, Ala., Slope No. 2, September, 1917 

All rights reserved including foreign translation 



F334 



DEDICA TION 

This Booklet is lovingly dedicated to Dr. C. N. Carraway, 
who, fingering my bowels with tenderness care, performed on 
me a dangerous and oftimes fatal operation, which effectually 
and permanently ended my ten year suffering, and to Drs. 
C. C. Jones and Alfred Carraway his Assistants, and to Mrs. 
Carraway and her galaxy of sympathetic nurses, who, with 
watchful care tenderly nursed me when helpless and dependent 
was I as a new born babe, revived my faded hope of life, and 
restored youthful buoyancy, whose beauty, like infant's 
innocence and smiles, or like meteors the milky way skies streak- 
ing, or, like stars at twilight silently creeping from day's 
obsecurity to spangle evening skies, with their loveliness makes 
me glad, and who have abandoned the world with all its 
deceptive allurements and are, with altruistic devotion minister- 
ing to suffering humanity. When I meet them upon the 
street, their presence, brilliant like a star glittering along the 
midnight zodiac, cheers my sadness and gloom away as a smile 
to earth flashed from an angel's face through ajared gate of 
Paradise. 

All the above mentioned, with united and skillful efforts 
snatched me from impatient, gloating grave which so close I 
neared, and tenderly nursed me back to life again. The 
remembrance of that night, although on operating table, 
lingering dwells in memory so kindly, charming to awed still- 
ness, forms a brilliant, halo of cheer and gladness circling 
over a green, lovely flowery Oasis in the arid, desert waste of 
my sad, eventful and unh^'iSpj/ life, more beautiful by far, 
than the butterfly's trembli'rig wing, the wild briers' bloom 
perfumed, or dewdrops impearled on green grass blades glitter- 
ing in twilight morn. 

"How Sharper than a Serpent's tooth is ingratitude." 

©CI.A476240 



SEP 27 1917 

7tD. /. 



Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad 
Company 

As I take liberty of mentioning this company in my book, 
lest an evil motive be ascribed to me, now that my connection 
with it, through unavoidable circumstances, is severed, I wish 
to say it is in a spirit of pleasantry. 

In fact, I was so long connected with it, I sometimes think 
I own a large, a very large, a controlling interest in the concern, 
mammoth as it is, which, alas! proves only an illusory, mocking, 
tantalizing dream that rapidly vanishes into sheer nothingness 
on arousing from lethargy into conscious activity, and leaves 
me mortified, humiliated, chagrined, and despaired into 
saddest gloom. 

I have the kindest feeling for, and the greatest admiration 
of the T. C. I., because during our long business association it 
was so undeviatingly generous and courteous to me, to all its 
employees, as well as to the public in general, and, last, but not 
least, kind to, sympathetic with, and humane in its treatment 
of the poor, unfortunate convicts intrusted to its control by the 
State. 

Furthermore, with the emoluments from this Booklet I 
expect to buy the thing, huge as it is, and double every em- 
ployee's wages who buys this book, and amid deep tangled wild 
wood where Summers first their robes unfold and there, longest 
tarry, and the wild brier invites to luscious fruit, I'll build my 
villa where care relaxes into smiles and solicitude restrained, 
I'll triumph with ease, I shall, where breeze subdues the heat 
and with perfumed breath fans it away, where sweet scented 
wild shrubs thrive, where vines their grapes to ripeness purpled 
inviting hang, festooning tree to tree, throw away egregious 
complaints with vain and haughty regard, and face aglow with 
convivial smiles, brush forever away gloomy anxiety and dis- 
quieting despondency, and in quiescence, the subject of my 
earliest noontide songs and twilight vespers, merry to Lesbian 
lyre attuned, shall be praises to rivulets trembling in murmurs 
down their slope winding channels, rocks with moss o'er grown, 
and blisful groves of delighful country. 

I'll take wings of morning, fly to verdant hills and watered 
pastures green, where beauty and quietude supremely reign, 
whence smiles the world like no where else and ends my fatigues 
from the coal fields, for habitation in that blest place solicits 
me, thence, in fruition, and tranquil ease, where envious care 
disturbs not our slumbers, marred only, alasl fatally, by absence 
of woman's crowning, elixired love in sparklings glittering 
there, rural affairs, tangled wild wood, shady parks, and grape 
vine swings from Sun's scorch hid. Heroes and fragrant breeze 
with echoes o'er the vales in dilliance sporting, shall in Odes, 
fadeless to immortality, be my themes. 



Birmingham Bob of Rainbow Glen 

Recounting His Jollities While on a Lark in New York City, 
to His Friend, Snukum Sneezer Snolomigoster. 

As on Broadway I one night strolled, 
And of my stolen wealth I told, 
I met a girl by name Katrine, 
No sweeter hath yet e'er been seen. 

She was a sprightly, buxon girl. 
And did her hair in ringlets curl ; 
Nor was she one bit less genteel 
Because of much expanse of heel. 

Her age was far from "sweet sixteen" — 
Twice twenty summers she has seen. 
An old maid she is living yet. 
There is no man whom she can get. 

False were the hair and teeth she wore. 
To tempt some man of little lore ; 
But never yet has one she found 
In wedlock willing to be bound. 

A fierce-eyed girl* from Pratt was she. 
And in for fun both started we; 
Across the street then we did prance 
To where was on, we knew a dance. 

Katrine I whirled in every set. 
Till from her face poured streams of sweat; 
We danced till every couple fagged. 
And on my agile movements bragged. 

"Katrine," I then said, "let us go; 
This crowd for me is much too slow; 
On Bowery I think we'll find 
Men faster, girls more to my mind." 

Katrine I to the door then led. 
Huzzas loud heard was when I said, 
"You all to know wish who I am — 
I'm wealthy Bob from Birmingham." 

To shun policemen we contrived. 
And soon on Bowery arrived, 
When Katrine, baking, said, "I think 
Fast people go to skating rink." 

♦Employed by T. C. I. 



BIRMINGHAM BOB OF RAINBOW GLEN 

"To skating rink," I said, "we go. 
And wild oats much this night we'll sow." 
The place not far was up the street, 
And soon had we skates on our feet. 

Around the many couples sped, 

As Katrine in the ring I led; 

And loud were cheers bystanders sent. 

As I and Katrine whirling went. 

Like courser in a great prize race. 
Or as Camilla in the chase, 
We whirled around mid eclat loud, 
Which echoed was by passing cloud. 

I was in midst of dreams of youth, 
Was happy as mermaids, forsooth, 
As they did through the ripples glide 
And love songs sing in restless tide. 

In fairy land I was, it seemed, 
As panting Katrine much sweat streamed; 
When 'gainst a nail I "stumped" my toe, 
Which did me on the hard floor throw. 

Katrine on floor I also felled. 
And audience with laughter yelled; 
Pandemonium now ran wild 
As other skaters on us piled. 

We had a hapless mix-up quite, 
On that much un forgotten night, 
When boys and girls all scrambling lay 
On top of us in wild dismay. 

Upon the floor we rolled and rolled, 
And issued I oaths loud and bold ; 
Before was never heard such noise 
As made was by us girls and boys. 

I thought Old Devil now me had. 
And at that nail, damn, was I mad, 
When men astounded on me trod, 
And Katrine screamed for help from God. 

When I at last my feet regained, 
I found my ankles both well sprained, 
My elbows and my knees were bare, 
Katrine she lost her teeth and hair. 



6 BIRMINGHAM BOB OF RAINBOW GLEN 

Her head like looked an onion peeled, 
As she on floor much crippled reeled 
While searching for her teeth and wig, 
Which found she not in pieces big. 

When I that nail began to "cuss," 
The audience increased the fuss 
As they through doors and windows fled, 
Lest I with them augument the dead. 

I followed them in open air. 
And at them fiercely I did swear, 
And crowds admiring round me flocked 
As down policemen six I knocked. 

I never was so mad before 
As when hard hit my head that floor, 
And athletes, tumbling, tore my hide 
In patches long, and also wide. 

When I that floor struck with my head, 
With jar enough to wake the dead, 
I saw in skies most every star — 
All those near by, and some afar. 

Katrine, when last heard from, frightened, mortified and 
chagrined at her ill-fated luck, and lost from her escort, was 
swimming the Hudson, toothless and hairless, nearing the far- 
side shore. Alarmed at the wonderful prowess of her liege 
lord, she was making frantic efforts with bewailing utterances, 
with delay laid aside, to reach the Magic City of the South, 
nestled at the foot of the Alleghanies, between the coal fields 
and iron mountains of Alabama. 

"Hooraw" for Bob, Katrine, Birmingham, Pratt City, 
Slope No. 2 and the T. C. I.! 

May they grow, flourish and spread out like willow bushes 
green fringing the murky waters of Slope 2 Pond. 
More anon — Bob. 



Benton Battle 

On the 10th day of April, 1865, the day after General Lee 
grounded his shattered arms, and furled his ball-perforated 
and shell-ripped flag at Appomattox, where and when died Con- 
federacy, the Fourth and Seventh Alabama cavalry regiments, 
both together not over six hundred strong, were posted on a 
ridge about half mile east of Benton, on the Alabama river, 
to dispute with General Wilson, with his thirteen thousand 
five hundred men, concerning the right of way to Montgomery. 
Our position overlooked Benton, the river and the little 
valley in which the town nestled. That was the first time we 
had encountered the Yankees since our disastrous retreat from 
Nashville. After that retreat, it was evident from the con- 
versation of the officers they would never stand again in battle 
and there is one thing sure, if the officers will not stand, the 
poor private is going to run, too. I overheard some officers 
talking that morning, one of them a captain in the Fourth 
Alabama, said, "I am going to call around me the chivalrous 
the brave, the noble and the true, and die in the last 'ditch,' my 
sword dripping blood, and my face toward the dastardly and 
damnable Yankee foe." 

I said, inaudibly then, "Yes, you will be the first to flee 
from this ridge." There were some government supplies 
stored in Benton, and this captain had secured by some means 
a bolt of domestic, I suppose fifty yeards, which he had tied to 
the rear of his saddle. 

About the noon hour, the long looked for but unwished for 
Wilson, with his host, appeared very suddenly on the far side of 
the little valley, not more than half mile away. Our horses 
were already saddled, and baggage thrown on their backs, 
ready to move at once. 

The order came, "mount, fall in line of battle," and in 
less than three minutes, we were in battle array, ready for the 
conflict. That was the grandest sight I ever saw, if danger 
could have been eliminated. 

From our elevated position, we could distinctly see our 
pickets, not more than twenty-five men, fighting Wilson's 
whole command, apparently. They were dismounted, and 
with no breastworks except atmosphere, we could see 
smoke boiling from their muskets, curling upward in air 
until Wilson's mounted chargers were within fifty feet, gallop- 
ing like mad men. 

On, on, across the little intervening valley came Wilson's 
thirteen thousand brave and victorious men, well clothed, well- 
fed well equipped with implements of war, mounted upon fine 
and well-groomed horses, charging impetously toward our 
little band of six hundred stationed along the ridge awaiting 
their onslaught. On came Wilson without obstruction, to the 
foot of the ridge, nor did they stop there. On up the acclivity 



8 BENTON BATTLE FIELD 

they rushing came, frightful in apperance as is oncoming tor- 
nado, their well-directed balls in multitudes alarmingly near 
began whistling most uncomfortable and unmusical sounds. 
My first impluse was to charge over them and cutting right 
and left, my eyes aglow with patriotic and vengeful glare, 
consternate them into frenzy wild, open a broad gap through 
their ranks and scatter them in confusion and demoralization, 
and repent them into grief abundant for their temerity, but 
after rapid and sagacious reflection of less than a moment, I 
reckoned it not best, as Hasdrubal at Metaurus, tried that 
costly expedient on a similar emergency and found it non- 
conducive to longevity, wrought economic disaster, his body 
gory, a headless corpse, his head a ghastly trophy, graced a 
hated inveterate victor's intoxicating triumph, and I deemed it 
prudent, to first examine the rear, and see if there were any in 
that direction coming. 

Several men down the line to my left were wounded, and 
were giving vent to fright and suffering in loud pain proclaiming 
wails and earnest praises to God for help in alarming ejacu- 
lations, and Charlie Cook, who was by my side, unintentionly 
caught a whizzing ball with his leg which caused him to raise a 
squall shrill, sudden, loud and terrorizing like a panther, a 
monkey, two coons and a wild house cat clawing and scratching 
indiscrimately in a free-for-all fight in a pile in midnight combat 
fierce, frightening me, and chilling my already quaking bones 
until I thought I was shot too, and most mortally so, and I 
began looking for a soft place on which to fall, but before I 
could find a desirable spot exactly suited to my taste, I saw the 
before mentioned Captain, who was suddenly seized with 
trembling fear, fleeing for safety, with face plainly picturing 
fierce despair, and just then, 

I heard the cannon's startling boom. 

Which caused me dread great of the tomb. 

The Devil, too, I thought of him. 

As tree tops shells began to trim, 
and I fell right in behind the Captain, going away from there 
too. 

At this crisis I tried to pray, but not being accustomed to 
it I could think of nothing to say except my fathers table 
blessing, ''Lord make us thankful J or what we are about to receive' 
which I thought, after repeating many times, very inappro- 
priate and much unsuitable in a time like that, so I abandoned 
prayer and resorted to active flight, which I soon found an 
effective specific, and at once obtained most satisfactory and 
pleasing results. 

Bless your soul, kind reader, we "lit out" from there, and 
don't you forget it; from under those unfriendly skies falling 
on us bomb shells while bursting, pandemonium and chaos 
reigned supreme, and, exactly as I had predicted, the Captain 
was first to break, leaving his men behind. 



BENTON BATTLE FIELD 9 

His horse's mettle he sure did stir, 
With whip and rein and saw-Uke spur, 
He, Hke a streak of Hghtening greased, 
Fled, for he was with great fright seized. 

I had a very fast horse, and, reader, I verily believe I 
would have distanced the Captain that day, but just as he 
began his flight, his bolt of domestic began unfolding, and he had 
not gone far until about seventy-five feet of it was fluttering 
gallantly in the breeze behind. He did not have time to jerk 
it loose from his saddle; in fact, he never knew it was flying, for 
he was not thinking about things in the rear except Yankees, 
and dim of battle roaring. He was perfectly oblivious to all 
else besides. He had no time to fool away with dry goods 
then. 

Sometimes the Captain's tail was high in air like a kite, 
and again down on the ground ; sometimes flapping and flopping 
in my face so I could not see, and then in my horses face so he 
could not get along to my entire satisfaction, as the exigency of 
the occasion just at that time actually and absolutely de- 
manded. I was afraid my horse would get his feet tangled in it 
and fall, and I knew I would be trampled to death by those 
following if he did, or I feared it would get wrapped around my 
neck and jerk me down upon the ground. I tried, and tried in 
vain, to get a hold on it and tear it off; I could touch it occasion- 
ally with my hand, but it invariably slipped out of my grasp, 
and again fluttered in midair far above our heads. 

When we left Benton, there were Yankees in multitudes 
in front of us approaching at a rapid rate; soon there would 
have been "Yankees to the right of us, Yankees to the left of 
us, and from the jaws of hell rushed away we six hundred." 
The whole command broke in stampede wild. 

When we broke from our battle line on the ridge, the road 
for about a mile ran through wooded ground, and we spread out 
through this about one hundred yards on each side, and, let me 
tell you, reader, we, like a stampeded herd of buffaloes with a 
rattle box to each one's tail, we, the Fourth and Seventh 
jumbled, we mingled, we commingled, we mixed and we 
mingled again. We "hit the grit," we "scatlofiscated, 'we came 
in off the ice," we "made a home run," we " got there, Ely" and 
did all kindred and related things. Sure, it was a race for 
safety, not for fun. Trees, briers, bushes, limbs, tree-tops, 
logs, stumps, gullies, ditches, bogs, quagmires, rattle snake and 
gopher dens and little things like them stood not at all in our 
way. 

Don't you know, kind reader, Yankees had fun that day. 

If Wellington, Napoleon and Blucher could have seen us 
that day, the frightened, fleeing and terror-stricken remnants of 
the Fourth and Seventh Alabama Cavalry, they would have 
been to mortification ashamed of Waterloo. 



10 BENTON BATTLE FIELD 

About a mile and a half from Benton, our way led through 
a long lane, and having to draw in our wings here, we crowded 
into it, still mixing and mingliing, commingling and "getting 
there Ely," bullets whistling above and around uncomfortably 
near. 

Those people behind hallowed to us in front to throw down 
the fence on both sides and let the men scatter, but, pshaw! we 
had no spare time to devote to fences. The Captain and I 
were doing our share of the scattering. 

We were measuring the ground with great rapidity far ahead 
of the Yankees, and were swiftly increasing space between us in 
large, beautiful, satisfactory and admirable quantities. 

About half a mile from the lane we had an old, dilapidated 
and apparently rotten bridge to cross. In going down to 
Benton the day before, we were afraid for two horses to walk 
side by side, for fear it would fall, so we crossed in single file. 
When we first left Benton I though of that bridge. I thought 
the first men who reached it would pass over safely, and so 
many would soon crowd upon it, it would break down and all 
would be either drowned, killed or captured, and I determined, if 
possible to keep well in front, and besides I had no inclination 
to stay back there any way. We had a good, dry, firm road 
until we reached the bridge ; beyond we had about half mile of 
mud and mire. 

Just as I struck the bridge, the Captain, in a lope, with his 
tail still waving high in air, rode off the far end. He was 
the first man over and I about fifth. When I struck the bridge 
I shut off steam, and started across in a walk, yelling back to 
those in the rear not to crowd upon me, as they would crush the 
bridge; but, pshaw! they heeded not my warning, and the panic- 
stricken fugitives began passing me, and I again sunk spurs deep 
into my faithful horse's side, turned on all steam possible, and 
went off that bridge in a lope, too. 

I turned on my horse my armed heel. 
And stirred his courage with my steel, 
Bounded the fiery steed in air, 
I sat half bent, but firmly there. 

Across that creek I swift did ride. 
And in the race I mocked its tide. 
And on opposing shore took ground, 
With splash, with scramble, and with bound. 

When I landed safely across, I looked back, and just as 
many men and horses as could were piling on top of the bridge, 
but fortunately it never gave way, and all passed over safely. 
F'rom some cause, the Yankees halted before reaching the 
bridge. Had they pursued us persistently they would have 
killed or captured nearly all of us. as we were delayed in crossing 
and the mud was so deep after crossing we could travel only 
in a walk. 



BENTON BATTLE FIELD 11 

I guess the reason the Yankees stopped, they saw the 
Captain's tail fluttering in breezing air and mistook it for a 
flag of truce. 

Soon after the Captain rode off the bridge, some man's 
horse steepped on his flag and ripped it loose from his saddle, 
almost jerking him and his horse down in the mud. 

He thought the Yankees had him then. It was to my 
extreme delight when I saw his domestic torn from his saddle, 
and to my great merriment, when a place of safety I had found, 
and fright had subsided. 

After the Captain lost his caudal appendage, the last I saw 
of him, his horse, stimulated much by the influence of his 
master's cruel spurs, was struggling and floundering in the mud 
like a sea lion on land or a young whale left stranded on the 
beach by tide receding. He rapidly increased distance between 
himself and me and the Yankees, economizing time with 
greatest rapidity. 

He seemed to think the "last ditch" was over in Georgia 
somewhere, for he evidently was extremely anxious to reach the 
Chattahoochee. At any* rate, he seemed to think the "last 
ditch" was no where about Benton. 

I saw the Captain no more, but methinks preadventure, 
from his inspiration of patriotic zeal, and bravery, and eager 
desire to serve his bleeding and devasted country, and relieve her 
of her bitter woes, he fled across the cotton fields of Alabama, 
stopped not at the bordering Chattahoochee, but leaped it, 
and the overflowing streams of Georgia, like a grasshopper 
pursued by a hungry hopping toad, and inextricably bogged 
himself in the marshy rice fields of South Carolina like a burrow- 
ing gopher, or drowned himself in the foamy surf off North 
Carolina reefs trying to wide Atlantic swim. 

Talk not, in terms of praise, admiration and wonder of 
Pharsalia, Munda, Austerlitz, Jena, Waterloo, Balaklava, 
Marengo, Gettysburg, Spottsylvainia, Arbela, Chickamauga or 
even the marvelous flight of Day's frigthened brigade from 
Missionary Ridge terrified to distraction, and little skirmishes 
like them, for they actually pale into utter insignifiance, and 
absolute unimportance, when compared with the Fourth and 
Seventh Alabama's wild headlong, unprecedented and brilliant 
flight from Benton battlefield, which, as Virgil says, "is the 
theme of Heroes admiring." 



Reader, don't you think because I evinced such inordinate 
desire for distance, and a wider expanse of territory contraven- 
ing, and from Benton precipitately fled, and hiked so suddenly 
and rapidly away, that I am a coward and won't fight, and get 
yourself with me mixed up in a noisy rencounter both fierce 
and serious and perchance get yourself tangled into interminable 



12 BENTON BATTLE FIELD 

and irreparable trouble "monkeying" around me thinking I won't 
fight; for I only ran that day because I couldn't fly, and I was 
"grilling hot an' er sweatin" too, hot, yes hotasBobThales when 
eat-out by his wife's kinsfolk, mother-in-law inclusive, and then 
and there, notwithstanding my besetting difficulties, preplexing 
and harrassing, and with sweat much wet, I came out even with 
them, for I killed as many of them as they did of me, in fact, 
when the sudorifice race ended, I was, thank God, a little, 
though very little, ahead, and was rapidly gaining ground on 
them every jump and leap I made. 

If you don't think I'll fight, and think I dehght not in 
tumultous riot, and have no predilection for nose smashing 
melee to thy countenance unfriendly, and am now only boasting 
chimerically, pull off your coat, roll up your sleeves, and with 
me, with harlequin activity into arena martial walk, if think 
you it only pleasing comedy. 

Although I never had but one fight in my life, not much scrap 
at that, only two licks struck. In long ago receding years, a 
fellow struck me and then I, mad, with bleeding nose, it hav- 
ing been flattened and spread out much, with violent belligerence 
and pugilistic fury and with loud pain announcing screams 
struck the ground, while he, malignant, in crowning triumph 
o'er me prostrate smiling stood. 

Yet with hostile fire through my crooked veins in flames burn- 
ingl'll fight any man who snuffs the dusty wind, be he Caucasian, 
African, Hindoo, German, Hottentot or Irish Police if he will go 
at once, fearing not submarines, to illfated Belgiums' blood 
drenched grounds, where are gory trenches dug and war's 
ceaseless echoes are resounding heard, or, if, it delighteth him 
more, let him veer to the faraway newly twice discovered North 
Pole Sea, where shrill winds blow, and upon a lofty, glittering, 
pole-marking iceberg, with the summit of its glacial spires lifted 
high into frosty air, majestic in its solitude, with patience await 
there, the ferocity of my coming, and sad eventualities following. 

I'll fight him, a dirty, impudent sinner, to a finish, with 
any weapon of war he may select, that has ever been invented 
yet, from a thunder-roaring, ground- jarring, fire-flashing, 
bomb-belching, water-splashing, navy-sinking siege gun down 
to brawny Sampson's wicked mule jaw. 

With angry frown and scowling brow I'll pass him to the 
shades below into abysmal night. I'll beat the seventeen ugly 
devils out of him, I'll tear him limb from limb and pound his 
irreligious bones to dust damfidont 

Good-Bye 

READER. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



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